15 awesome LG V10 tips and tricks

A second screen, a cutting edge camera, and all the latest Android goodies with an LG garnish, make the LG V10 one of the most exciting, feature-packed phones we’ve ever seen. But those first few fumbling days with a new smartphone can prove frustrating. It can take a while to figure things out, but there’s no need to feel your way around. We can help you skip straight to the fun part, with our roundup of handy LG V10 tips and tricks.

How to customize your unlock pattern

LG popularized the ability to wake your phone by double-tapping the screen, when it introduced the “Knock On” feature in the G2. Things have moved on since then. You can now set a specific pattern, for a modicum of security to go with your convenience. Go to Settings > Lock screen > Select screen lock > Knock Code and you’ll find the option to set an unlock pattern of 3-8 taps that will quickly wake and unlock your V10 from its slumber.

How to streamline navigation

There are two areas you’ll use a lot to navigate around on your LG V10, so it’s well worth customizing them to suit your preferences. Start at Settings > Display > Home touch buttons > Button combination and you can tweak the order and look of your basic navigation, ever-present at the bottom of the screen. You can even add a couple of extra shortcuts in here, for a maximum of five.

You should also customize your Quick Toggles that appear in the notification shade when you drag down from the top of the screen. Pull down the notification shade and scroll all the way to the right, then tap Edit, and you can re-order and tweak the line-up.

How to use the second screen

The second screen is one of the headline features of the LG V10, and you can do various things with it. Go to Settings > Second screen, toggle Show when main screen on and then tap on it to choose what you want displayed. You can have it automatically show the last five apps used, choose shortcuts to your favorite apps and contacts, music controls, upcoming calendar entries, or display a custom signature. You’ll also find that the second screen will contextually display more options for some specific apps, like the camera app, when they’re open.

There’s also a Show when main screen off option, but it’s limited to the date and time, or your custom signature. You can swipe to the right to find toggles for Wi-Fi, flashlight, and camera. If you choose a signature, you can enter the exact text you want and choose from a range of different fonts. You can also make sure sensitive content like upcoming plans never shows when the screen is locked by tapping the three vertical dots at the top right in Settings > Display > Second screen > Show when main screen off and then Hide sensitive content.

How to automate your LG V10

You’ll find some really useful options to automate your phone in Settings > Smart settings. For example, you can automatically turn on Wi-Fi when you’re at home, or automatically turn off Bluetooth when you go out. You could also set the Spotify app to launch every time you plug in headphones. For some of this to work, you’ll need to set up your home location in Settings > Location > My place.

If you really like this kind of automation, but find that LG’s options are a bit limited, then you might want to check out apps like Tasker ($3) or Automate.

How to take a screenshot

You can capture a screenshot on your LG V10 the usual Android way, by holding down the Power button and the Volume down button simultaneously, but it’s pretty awkward to do with the button placement on the back. Thankfully, there is another way. There’s a Capture+ option in your Quick Toggles in the notification shade that will take a screenshot and enable you to edit, so you can annotate if you want to. If you take a lot of screenshots, you can even add Capture+ to the bottom of the screen via Settings > Display > Home touch buttons.

How to loop your Home screens

Does it annoy you that you can’t just scroll round in a loop when you swipe right or left on your home screens? Go to Settings > Home screen, and tap Allow Home screen looping, and it will never bother you again.

How to increase your storage space

LG is one of the few manufacturers still offering the option to expand your basic storage with a MicroSD card. You can get up to an extra 128GB by doing that. There’s also a handy shortcut to free up wasted space. Go to Settings > Smart cleaning and you’ll find the quick option to rid yourself of Temporary files & raw files or empty the Download folder.

How to use two apps at once

You have a couple of ways of doing this. First, tap the multitasking button and you can choose Dual Window to split the screen between two apps. Simply drag the line in the middle to resize the windows. It doesn’t work with every app, but you can use it with stuff like YouTube, Chrome, and Google Docs.

You can also have one app open with another windowed app floating on top if you use the QSlide feature. You’ll find QSlide in Quick Toggles in the notification shade. It’s handy if you want things like the calendar or a calculator open on top of something else. Each app you open this way can be resized by dragging the corner, and you can use the slider to make it transparent.

How to go full screen in apps

If you get irritated by the on screen Home touch buttons at the bottom of the screen when you’re in apps, then you’ll be glad to know that you can get rid of them. Go to Settings > Display > Home touch buttons > Hide Home touch buttons and you’ll see a list of all your apps. Tap the apps that you want the full screen experience in. When the buttons are hidden, and you want to get them back, you simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen to conjure them up.

How to save text messages

One of the most annoying things about getting a new phone is that you often lose all your old text messages when you switch over. If you want to make sure that doesn’t happen when you switch from your LG V10, then open up the Messaging app, tap the three vertical dots at the top right, and choose General settings > Save to, and you can switch from internal storage to the MicroSD card, if you have one inserted.

How to use the camera

The LG V10 has a truly excellent camera and it’s absolutely packed with options, but you can choose whether you want to delve into the extras or not. Open up the camera and you’ll see the modes listed on the second screen. If you aren’t confident playing with shutter speed, ISO, or focus settings, then just choose Auto. If you want to play around, then Manual mode unlocks a wealth of possibilities.

How to quick launch the camera

It’s frustrating if you miss the perfect shot fumbling to get the camera open. Go to Settings > Shortcut key and toggle it On. Now, you can double tap the Volume down button to quickly launch straight into the camera app. You can even set it to automatically snap a shot when you do this, to make it easier to capture those spontaneous moments.

How to trigger a selfie remotely

You don’t need a remote control to prompt your LG V10 to snap a group shot when you aren’t holding it. Set the phone up, get everyone in place, and you can simply hold your open hand up until you see brackets appear round it and then make a fist to trigger a three second countdown to a photo. If you make a fist twice in a row, then it will capture a burst shot.

You could also use the Voice Shutter option, which you can turn on by tapping the gear icon and then tapping on the face icon. Once it’s enabled, you can take a shot by saying “cheese, smile, whiskey, kimchi, or LG.”

How to capture great videos

The fact that the LG V10 offers a Manual mode for videos as well as photos is quite unusual. There are tons of interesting settings in there that you won’t find on any other phone, including the ability to shoot 4K video at 24 frames per second. Something you should definitely check out, particularly when shooting video outdoors, is the audio options. Tap the microphone icon at the bottom of the screen and you can choose the direction of the sound you want to capture, tweak the audio gain, or filter out wind noise.

How to protect sensitive photos or videos

We’re not going to ask why you want to keep certain photos or videos under wraps, but you’ll be glad to know that LG has included the option to safeguard them with fingerprint, password, or pattern lock. Go to Settings > Fingerprints & security > Content lock and follow the instructions. Now you can find the sensitive photo in question in your Gallery app and tap the three vertical dots to select Lock. You can use this feature to lock QuickMemo notes as well.

That’s all the LG V10 tips and tricks we have for now, but if you’d like to suggest one please hit the comments.